Dean raped Linda. Fact.

Now I know Shirley is not to blame for this but she's 100% responsible for her actions after the revelation. She has time and time again listened to Dean's side of the story but never once stopped to consider Linda in the whole situation, other than that few second exchange in the kitchen she hasn't let her daughter-in-law have a say. I know no mother wants to think their child capable of such a crime but even if Shirley doesn't believe the rape she must see the Mick does.

Mick has known Linda since he was 12, they have grown up together, have 3 (now 4) children together, as has been demonstrated to Shirley on numerous times Muck and Linda tell each other everything, they are each other's one and only sexual partner so surely somewhere deep down she must know there has to be some truth in it.

As time has gone on I personally don't feel that Shirley's denial is all about not wanting to believe Dean capable, but also because if she does accept Linda's truth then she had to also accept that he idea of a happy ever after with her two boys will never happen.

Shirley wants what is best for Shirley.

And because of that she was willing to accuse Linda of being a liar both in public and her own home, not only that but she has gone out of her way to belittle her, because as she once put it Linda's feelings and position mean nothing to her, to Shirley her daughter-in-law and mother of her grandchildren is just a 'cuckoo in the nest' who 'isn't even blood' and is ruining her plans to become Queen on the Vic with Dean on one side and Mick on the other.

Is that someone you would want in your child's life? I know I sure would not. Linda has suffered the worst violation any woman can, an emotional traumatic pregnancy and physically and emotionally traumatic premature birth. Of course she doesn't want a bitter, bullying alcoholic around. Oliver isn't even home her, Mick and Linda need to be left in peace to enjoy there new baby before they should have to contend with Shirley's demands.

Time and time again Linda has offered Shirley the olive branch and time and time again she has thrown it back in her face, there's only so much know woman can take. Shirley is a child and do reacts like one when she doesn't get her own way by throwing her toys out the pram.

Take Christmas for example; Mick specifically asked her to keep Dean away, but she didn't get her wish of sitting round the dinner table, holding hands with her boys and singing Kum-Ba-Yah so she marched into the Queen Vic (Linda's home) and accused her of bring a liar in front of her family.

The same at the wake Mick was willing to compromise and have Shirley there (hell Linda was even willing to have Dean there) but that wasn't enough for Shirley she wanted her, Mick and Dean together, so she cut the sign up and demanded to buy the pub (a pub which her claim on is what 1% at best - if I was Mick and Linda I would have hired a lawyer) not giving a second thought to the fact it was her son, heavily pregnant daughter-in-law and grand children's home.

Then just hours/days after Oliver was born she was told 'not now' when asked to see him, Mick didn't tell her that she couldb't ever see him, he just told her that she couldn't see him then and rightly so Linda was still recovering and Oliver was in SCBU, but no that wasn't good enough fur Shirley so she marched her band of merry men to the hospital (including Linda's rapist) abs demanded a paternity test, something she had no right to demand.

So in this situation I say GO LINDA, keep the overgrown, bitter child as far away from your family as possible, enjoy your new son. Now Oliver's paternity is cleared up and her she Mick are back on somewhat even keel the last they need is their own 'cuckoo in the nest' casting a cloud over what should be a time of celebrations and new begginings, a new beginning that should not include Shirley.

The night Linda went into labour I remember her moaning to Mick that this has 'never been about what she wants' I'm sorry but from the minute she found out it's all been about what she wants so much so that Linda has become almost a background player in her own story.

So in this instance I'm firmly Team Linda. But knowing Shirley when she doesn't get what she wants she'll throw herself to the floor kicking and screaming until someone gives in because let's bot forget that she's the real victim in all this <eye roll>

You've completely rewritten history! Carly and Dean have told her countless times what a terrible mother she was.

They said she was a terrible mother for abandoning them not for when she was with them. If Carly and Dean can't remember Shirley from their childhood, they wouldn't remember if she was a good or a bad mother at that time. Tina and Mick have both said that Shirley was a good mother to them and there is nothing to say that she wasn't a good mother to Jimbo, Carly and Dean before she left. She left because she couldn't cope not because she didn't love her kids.

Great post.

I don't blame Linda for cutting her out

Of course mick will bypass her due to dtc. I wish we didn't have a producer so in love with shirley

I'm glad Shirley is being utilised better, however I wish they would balance her facets out a bit more, Shirley can offer so much more than just shouting at other characters, and Linda Henry is better than that also.

Well said.

We had Kevin and Shirley's verdict on how she was as a mother, not just for leaving but whilst she was still with them. Or are we pretending that they didn't say (and Shirley didn't deny) that she was out drinking and picking men up virtually every night whilst Kevin had to stay home with the kids? Sorry, but I don't think that is responsible or loving parenting.

That doesn't mean she can't be redeemed of course (she was young and stressed about Jimbo but then of course so will Kevin have been) and maybe her getting Tina and Mick out of care was a way of trying to make amends but it doesn't change the fact that she is still being a fairly dreadful parent now by belittling her son's wife and constantly flying off the handle - as when she destroyed the sign in a fit of pique for not getting her way about aTtending the funeral with 'her boys'.

I used to be a big fan of Shirley but since Shirley had sided with Dean, I really started to turn on Shirley. She's so unlikeable and a nasty piece of work. Shirley doesn't have many redeeming qualities now. She needs to find out about Dean but I think her behaviour will get worse. I'm glad Linda told Shirley to stay away because Shirley was really horrible to her. Linda should never forgive Shirley.

I think the trouble is that DTC has rewritten history. The impression about how Shirley was with her children before leaving (and even when she left) is very different now to what was said in 2007. There were no cute stories about playing with Dean on the beach on a big outing with the extended family back then. No, what we were told by the witnesses old enoug to remember (Kevin and Pat) was that she was utterly useless and borderline neglectful even before she'd left. There was also the fact that she was willing to blackmail Keving with telling them he wasn't their father if she didn't get things her own way - something she must know would hurt them (and has done Dean long term harm) and is not the act of a loving, regretful mother.

Now for those that want to see the best in Shirley, it is easy to give more credence to the 'current' official history, the one where she stayed until they were teenagers or nearly teenagers, where they had nice holidays, where she didn't go out drinking and sleeping around constantly, where she cared for Jimbo, grieved when he died and has never got over it and was only absent for about 7 years and she was also looking after her little sister and 'brother' at the same time.

For those of us that although we find Shirley interesting, think she is a fairly horrible human being find it much harder to forget the way her character was initially presented and think that Kevin was very unlikely to have lied about it.

Bib: It hasn't been said that Shirley stayed until they were teenagers? She left when Dean was 3, that hasn't been changed. There is an interview with Linda Henry in What's On TV back in 2007 where she said that Shirley left when Dean was 3. Shirley did cheat on Kevin and all that but there must have been some good times in their relationship considering they were supposed to have been together for almost a decade. Why did Kevin never leave?

Where does the 14 years since Jimbo died come from? They seem to be saying she was still around for that so she would have had contact with Dean and Carly then.

Kevin was a good man who didn't want his sick child (and then children) to not have a mother, even though she was pretty useless? He didn't want to be nasty enough to kick her out? He didn't want to uproot his children from their home bu making the move to leave himself and didn't trust Shirley to look after them if he wasn't there?

People stay in very unhappy marriages for all sorts of reasons, often practical like not having enough money to start again somewhere else.

If i've got the wrong end of the stick re Jimbo's death then fair enough but they do seem to be implying now that Shirley hadn't abandoned him years before and didn't only find out he was dead in 2007.

Linda should definitely not let that rapist-supporting witch anywhere near her son. Mick should respect that too, and Shirley should realise that she has made her bed and should lie in it.

I think the recent line about Shirley having tests done after Jimbo's death was a continuity error rather than a retcon. A retcon is deliberate and something that the show intends to use going forward. The majority of references have said she left long before then when Carly and Dean were still really young. I can't see the version of events from the other week ever coming up again.

The thing is neither Pat (who was hardly mother of the year herself) or Kevin were the most impartial when it came to Shirley. Given how long she and Kevin were together there must've been times when Shirley was making the effort, otherwise it doesn't look good on Kevin's part staying with a woman who was having a harmful effect on the kids which this 'never there, always sleeping around, always drunk' version of events would've almost certainly had.

Other than a few pieces of dialogue the show didn't really flesh out Kevin and Shirley's history in 2007. I'm not sure why but they chose to focus on Shirley's friendship with Heather instead.

I think people are just seeing this as Linda vs.. Shirley and are pleased to see Linda get one up on Shirley because of the way she has spoken about her.

But this isn't just about them, this is about Ollie too. Linda is only within her rights to prevent a relationship between Shirley and her grandson if she has good reason to doubt that it's not good for him.

It's possible for people to have individual relationships within a family despite surrounding conflict.

Well of course it is, as i've already mentioned my parents didn't much like my Nana (for some very good reasons) but they never stopped her knowing my brother and myself, come to that it didn't stop them looking after her when she was sick.

Personally I think the possibility (and i do believe it is a real possibility) of Shirley talking about Linda, accusing her of lying and causing trouble is enough that it might have a harmful effect on Ollie. I don't just see it as a Linda vs Shirley battle with Ollie as a weapon, in fact I think he is much more likely to be used as a weapon, and by Shirley if she has contact. So it would harm him. But that is just my opinion.

It's not just the line about getting them tested after Jimbo died but also her and Babe remembering the date of his death that have given me the impression that she was around then.

Pat was far from a good mother, true but that doesn't mean she was lying. Of course she and Kevin would have a biased view of Shirley but the point is, how did they come to form such a negative opinion of her? She must have done something to trigger it.

I guess, it partly will come down to who the viewer is more inclined to believe - Kevin or Shirley based on how honest they were in other matters during their time on ths show. Personally, I found Kevin to be an honest, decent man who undoubtably loved his children and would do anything to keep them safe and happy whereas at the very least Shirley was willing to hurt them by revealing the truth (which it turns out still wasn't the truth) of their paternity. To me, shirley has a proven track record of lying, lashing out to hurt others when she is hurt whereas Kevin didn't. So, I believe Kevin over Shirley but that is subjective.

I understand Linda having concerns but is that enough? Surely you wait to be proved right in those concerns before taking action? Unless there's a risk of the baby coming to any physical harm and I don't believe that is the case here. As I said earlier, any contact could be limited and subject to conditions as set out by Linda and Mick with initial visits taking place at the Vic etc. There are ways to build up that trust and for Shirley to put Linda's mind at ease.

I think giving Shirley an inch and seeing what she does with it is the only way they can prove / have reasonable doubt over what sort of influence she would be on the baby.


Surely she would've been told the date of Jimbo's death?

're Ollie, I imagine that by the time he is old to understand these things, Shirley would have discovered the truth about Dean. However there is no evidence that she would cause trouble with Ollie with regards to Dean, she didn't with Nancy or Lee. She hasn't tried to turn either of them against Linda and even when it was newly revealed and Nancy probed Shirley for information, she declined to say anything, saying it wasn't her place.

I think Babe and Shirley were just reminiscing the anniversary of Jimbo's death, even if Shirley wasn't there, she would still remember it and I do think she feels a lot of guilt around Jimbo. Last year Dean mentioned that Shirley wasn't around at that time of his death and that she didn't attend his funeral. Previously Shirley mentioned Jimbo's anniversary to Ronnie but that doesn't mean she was present.

With the tests, I think that was just a script error - I could easily believe that Shirley had those documents from the box that Phil got from Pat's attic for her of Kevin's stuff but the script got a little bit mixed up.

With Shirley and Kevin's marriage, I don't think it would have all been bad. But we still haven't gotten to the bottom of why Shirley cheated on him - we know she was struggling with what happening with her mum, Mick and childhood - but why did she cheat on Kevin? What was their relationship like? Shirley does still talk fondly of Kevin and Buster said he was a good man, so I don't think it was terrible all the time. We have been given several reasons why Shirley was struggling but why did she leave when she did? What was it at that moment that made her snap? Jimbo must have been nearly 10 when Dean was 3, so why did she stay for almost a decade and then scarper. What was the catalyst at that moment? (does that make sense?) Also did Kevin know from the beginning that Dean/Carly weren't his and agree to bring them up as his own? Or did he not know? So many questions. I think they should have explained a bit more about Kevin/Shirley back in the early days.

With Pat and Kevin, I think Shirley cheating on Kevin and walking out would give a good enough reason for them both to be angry/form a bad opinion of her. Interestingly drinking and abandonment of her family can be linked back to Stan and Sylvie - learned behaviours.

On a side note, what we are seeing from Cindy breaking down over Beth now sort of parallels Shirley not coping with Mick, I think - only with Shirley no one aside from Babe (after Sylvie left) knew their true relationship (this is probably what caused Shirley to struggle to be a parent in the first place) and with the addition of her mother abandoning her and a drunken father.

Yes there are ways re supervised visits but I guess Linda might feel that she has already been proved right by Shirley's attitude during the pregnancy. If it is something like your baby, you will err on the side of caution, not wait for something to go wrong, for the damage to be done and then act. Also, re physical harm, don't forget that Linda blames Shirley for setting her Pub on fire all those years ago so maybe she doesn't trust her to actually be competent that way either.

The trouble is, Shirley has a history of taking a mile when given an inch. Linda agrees to let Shirley move in to the Vic but then that isn't enough, she was to be a part owner. Shirley won't just come to Stan's funeral by herself, she insists on Dean being with her. So, I think if I were Linda the same thing would happen. It would start with her just seeing Ollie at the Vic but then she'd start demanding to have unsupervised visits or as I say letting Dean be around. I'd probably not want to risk opening the flood gate at all. Perhaps that is unfair but I can understand it.

Yes, she'd probably have been told the date (although i don't remember it happening in 2007, in fact I don't remember her reacting to the news he'd died at all) but the way she talks about it makes it seem she was there. But again, that is just my perception of it.